Jacob Boon’s Top 10 Films You Should See Anyway They’re not all winners, but here are some picks from the man who has seen almost everything this year. They aren’t bad, they’re good-bad. Spring Breakers Directed by Harmony Korine (VVS) Harmony Korine’s candy-coated sexploitation assault would have been a cultural touchstone even if 2013 wasn’t […]
Jacob Boon
Posted inArts + Music
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
The epic children’s story continues, at great length, in bridging sequel The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Martin Freeman returns briefly as the titular hobbit, Bilbo, still wandering towards a dragon-filled mountain with his indistinguishable dwarf companions. Wizard Ian McKellen frigs off to investigate a more interesting plot, leaving the proto-fellowship to deal with elves, […]
Posted inLifestyle
16 Ways to Give Back, For Real
1 Pierre’s Alley Cats Since incorporating in 2007, PACS has been working to ease the suffering of Halifax’s stray and feral cat populations. The Society established and cares for the feral cat colonies at the CFB Halifax dockyard using their trap-neuter-return model, as well as providing food, shelter and veterinary care for stray and feral […]
Posted inArts + Music
Oldboy
Is everything okay, Spike Lee? It’s concerning that you’ve shuffled forth such miserable efforts in the American-remake of Oldboy. Virtually identical in story, US Oldboy finds a brutish lout (Josh Brolin) held captive in a sinister hotel room for 20 years before mysteriously being set free. Except this time Spike Lee is directing, so Katrina […]
Posted inArts + Music
Philomena
This isn’t the easiest film to sell. A British drama based on a non-fiction book, Philomena follows elderly Philomena Lee’s moving search for the son taken from her 50 years ago. You can go look up her results online and spoil the whole spiritual pilgrimage, if you’d like. But then you’ll miss Judi Dench’s face; […]
Posted inArts + Music
The Book Thief
In novel-turned-award season movie, The Book Thief, a Communist orphan, young Liesel (Sophie Nélisse) is sent to live with foster parents in Commonplace, Germantown. There she gets to experience all sorts of war-torn film clichés, from watching loved ones join Hitler’s army, to stealing contraband books, all the way to nursing the handsome Jewish refugee […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Dalhousie libraries saved from proposed budget cuts
Recent cuts to Dalhousie University’s library acquisitions budget have been stopped, but the battle isn’t over yet. “The shortfall’s covered for this year,” says student representative John Hutton, from Dalhousie’s board of governors. “The crisis hasn’t disappeared. It’s just sort of been put off.” Last winter, facing 3.5 percent cuts to all departments, Dalhousie’s budget […]
Posted inArts + Music
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Having won her society’s grandest contest, Jennifer Lawrence finds herself weary from constant celebrity scrutiny and false platitudes meant to waylay fears about the land’s brutal living conditions. But enough about the Oscars (wocka wocka), Lawrence returns as Katniss Everdeen in eventual sequel The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Suffering from PTSD, Katniss isn’t too thrilled […]
Posted inArts + Music
Delivery Man
Creating an almost identical remake of his 2011 film, Starbuck, Canadian writer/director Ken Scott should have used the chance to refresh the material in Delivery Man. Vince Vaughan, playing a slightly more pathetic Vince Vaughan than he’s been playing the last decade, stars as a broke meat truck driver who inadvertently fathered 533 children 20 […]
Posted inArts + Music
Dallas Buyers Club
A skeletal Matthew McConaughey is a fitting lead in the gaunt Dallas Buyers Club. Based, in part, on a real story, McConaughey plays homophobic, alcoholic, sexpot cowboy Ron Woodroof—a sinewy sonuvabitch who becomes diagnosed with AIDS in 1985 and is given 30 days to live. Unimpressed, Woodroof finds a semblance of health in Mexican drugs […]
Posted inArts + Music
Book smart
“Even now, I feel like I’m speaking in a bit of a hushed tone,” Veronica Simmonds murmurs from inside her wooden cubbyhole. Tucked away in the Spring Garden Road Memorial Public Library’s stacks, the booth is where Simmonds has been talking with patrons, recording their memories of the soon-to-be-vacated building. Despite all the chatter, so […]
Posted inArts + Music
The Best Man Holiday
It’s been 14 years since 1999’s The Best Man, but Christmas sequel The Best Man Holiday proves worth the wait. Original writer and director Malcolm D. Lee reunites his cast, featuring Taye Diggs, Nia Long, Morris Chestnut, Harold Perrineau, Sanaa Lathan and Terrence Howard, for a glitzy holiday weekend of secrets, surprises and sex. An […]